I feel the roads in my legs…

I broke my wrist a few weeks ago, as it would be, the week before I would have started racing this season.  I spent the cold winter months locked on the trainer, focused, confident in my strength, that it was going to be a good start to the spring.  I had started to realize my potential, started realizing my ability to suffer, to dig, to fight.

And it’s pushed off because I stupidly broke my wrist.

But I still feel the roads in my legs.  I’ll drive the rides I want to ride and my quads will tighten, my calves will pulse, my heartbeat will speed up.  I can feel every short climb I’ve done on the Saturday morning World Championship’s course.  I can feel the accelerations of the Rocket Ride.  I can feel the roads deep inside my body, inside my soul, attached to them in some spiritual way.  Riding, training, racing — it’s like going to church.  It’s a set of guidelines that I live by, my body only an engine to push the bicycle as hard and fast as I can.  Rapha imprints on their PRO clothing “Forcats De La Route” — Prisoner’s of the Road.

I’m not upset about the wrist because I feel like I’m losing my fitness.  I still get on the trainer, albeit begrudgingly, and not as much as I would like, but my fitness is still there.  I’m upset about the wrist because I can’t pour myself out over the road, I can’t leave my trail of sweat on the routes I know so well.  I can’t be out there in the pack, the hum of the freewheels, the clicks of the derailluers, the squeal of mal-adjusted brake pads.  I have to make penance for the other things in my life, I need to cleanse myself, I need to leave it all out on the road.

So I drive these routes, sometimes intentionally, others not, and I feel the roads in my legs.

A retrospective view

I have not been riding bonCourage, lately. That’s not to say that I haven’t since I last posted, in fact quite the contrary. It’s just over the past few weeks that I’ve felt lethargic, unmotivated, unwilling to get out of bed, turn on the lights, and roll out to watch the sunrise over the Hudson.

This was a big, great, fulfilling season for me that I feared would never get off the ground. My coach, my mentor, had a serious crash that took him out of the game and off the road for months. I feared the same fate, but I got over it. I, with my minimal fitness, embarked on as many Cat 5 races as I could muster. Did I do well? Not by the standards of points and rankings we all look at, but as far as personal accomplishment goes? Hell yeah, I did alright.

I didn’t hang with the 4/5 race once this year, but I think its more a matter of inexperience than inability. I’d give up too soon, I wouldn’t read the acceleration, and my God do I need to learn how to hammer through turn 1 at Rockleigh. But it’s good that I didn’t do well, for if I did how I would have liked I’d have fewer things to accomplish next year.

I still have some road season left, one (possibly two) races at Rockleigh next week, and possibly a big Prospect Park race October 2nd. Then I’m going to focus on cyclocross, see how I like it, see how it helps me build my fitness for next season.

What I can be proud of this year is summed up in a text message from a highly respected cyclist and shop owner: “Spanky you rode really well today. Thank johnny for pushing u a bit, but nonetheless a nice ride.”

What needs to change, however, is my current state of mind. I need to start riding bonCourage, for next season will be here before we know it.

Rockleigh Race Report, 07/28/2011

I’m going through and back-blogging some stuff.. don’t mind me.. nothing to see here..

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/102453430

19.88 miles 53:59 22.1mph

Didn’t set the auto lap, so I can’t say for sure where I blew up but it looks like it was after about 10-11 laps, eased up and waited for the group to come back around.  Went back in, hung out for a while at the back, knee started cramping, back started cramping, sat up after probably two more, pulled down the ramp and waited.  Got back on and ran it out to the end, bell lap surged, cramps kicking my ass, finally came unhinged one last time coming around corner three.

The race itself was 19 miles at 23mph.  I’m getting there!

Prospect Park Race Report, 07/23/2011

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/101105932

1:44:18, 29.07 miles, 16.8mph (overall)

Raced Prospect Park with Pietro this morning — an early morning starting with a 3:30 rise and shine to be at Peter’s house by 4-ish.  Into the car and away we go.  I had only enough time for a single practice lap and lined up with the other 5’s, and away we go. 

Right from the start I wasn’t right — I started coughing and trying to get something out of my lungs.  The entire ride up the hill as I’m fighting and fighting and coughing and coughing I become detached from the pack.  One other detached, in front of me, and once I take a minute and recover I’m on the chase.  I see them, no more than 25 yards out, and I’m pacing them, but I can’t seem to make up any time.  Take the descent as fast as I can manage, 35-some-odd mph, but to no avail.  Realizing that I wasn’t going to catch I rode within myself, and waited for them to catch me.  It wasn’t until my 4th lap that I was lapped, so I rolled in at the back of the pack and collected myself.

Did a few more laps while Pietro beat on the boys, few of the local Cosmic Wheel boys out in the 1-2-3 race.

Weight needs to keep coming down to deal with slight climbs like that one.  I’ll be back out there before the end of this season, I dig the circuit courses, like Branch Brook.

Rockleigh Race Report, 07/21/2011

Thursday : A hot and humid Rockleigh Crit
 
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/100814119
 
Suited up and headed out armed with six bottles and two 24 oz gatorades.  By the time the race started I was already down one gatorade and three bottles. Too hot to get a decent warm up in, so I just relaxed and stretched in the shade after about 2.5 miles.  Race started, I’m sitting in the front next to the yellow jersey on the neutral laps, and try and find my way to drop back a little so I have a wheel to hold.  Drop back about three wheels before the gun, and it goes hard from the start.  I start, as usual, losing ground in corner one, and am spent by the end of 3 hot laps.  I pull off and jump back in for three more, pull off and back in for three more, and finally get dropped one last time with two to go.  I sit up so I can hop back in for the finish, and I am SPENT.  Down a bottle of water on the recovery lap, dump one over my head, and start feeling a little light headed so I sit and recover on coach’s bumper, finally mustering the strength to get back to my car and start killing the second bottle of gatorade. 
 
HOT, HOT race.  Small field of only about 30, so I’ll comfort myself by believing that only the real men showed up to race tonight.
 
After I got home from the race I weighed myself and was two pounds heavier than I’ve been… Must have been all the water.

Realizing Your Potential

The events of two weeks shook me up, don’t get me wrong. Every week I’ve been going out to the Crit and watching the boys (and some girls) giving it their all — and at the risk of sounding like Ricky Bobby — I wanna go fast. I still want to race at the Rock. I want to mix it up realize some of the potential that’s sitting inside of me.

My father always quotes “A Bronx Tale”: The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.

I can’t say that I have any, not any natural talent, that is, but I’ve got heart. I know I’m not the fastest guy, but I can hang. I’ve improved so much over the past two years, I certainly have some potential.

I’ve always had the issue of allowing myself to accept mediocrity. I brought in okay grades. I work at an okay job. And then it clicked last night, when at the back of the pack, a rider shouted to another as he was dropping off the back fo the pack (and I’m paraphrasing here): “only average people give up! get back on!” I’d also heard him say something just before that about being extraordinary or something to the like, but the message was there — Don’t accept mediocrity. Give it your all, and it will pay dividends, if not what you’re doing, than at least as far as pride and personal achievement are concerned.

Ride hard out there. Ride bonCourage!

All Shook Up

I’ve been sitting in, waiting patiently while I get my fitness in order to start out my racing season at the Rockleigh Criterium.  I’ve been heading to the races, working as a Marshall, and wishing that I could be out there in the field, but knowing that I’m just not there yet. 

Last night a teammate was involved in a crash just before 1-to-go.  I had just turned away from the field when I heard the popping of tubes, carbon wheels, bones, or whatever it ended up being.  I had the sickening feeling that my teammate was wrapped up in it, and sure enough, he was.

Turns out a rider toward the front of the pack crossed wheels, and couldn’t recover.  He went down, and with the bunch accelerating for the last lap, took down a good portion of the main field with him.  It’s the first crash I’ve witnessed live — sure I’ve heard the war stories from other riders, but seeing my bud bleeding from his road rash, his bike looking, well, not so good, I started to have a gut check.  Do I really want to do this?  Do I really want to get involved in Crit racing? 

Other courses have felt safer to me than Rockleigh.  Branch Brook feels more open, even though the pavement is about as smooth as a pubescent teens face, with curbs lining the road.  The corners are easier, and in the one race I spent there, the pack seemed to be a little more spread apart.  But Branch Brook happens in March.  It’s over, and it’s a long time for it to come again. 

Do I suck it up and try to race Rockleigh?  Do I buckle down on my training and start training for longer, harder, more hilly road races?  I’m not sure what my plan is right now, but it’ll be a while before I look at the ‘Rock the same way.